I illustrated 9 frames from a video of me doing a flipping dismount in cheer and printed them on transparency paper. Then I stitched with black thread on top to accentuate the muscles in my body focusing on the strength, motion and velocity of the skill. This project showcases my ability to capture moments of dynamic movement. After I made these transparencies I photographed them on top of each other in different ways to demonstrate the physicality. I also scanned them and made a poster of the images overlapping. Finally, I illustrated an alphabet book that was inspired by the movement and strength of this flip. I printed each letter on a sheet of transparency paper and bound them together into a book. I used spiral binding to help viewers physically flip through the pages to reinforce the flipping action that I am performing.
To begin our thesis quest we were asked to write fifty questions and then create something from those questions. i knew i wanted to hand letter this project and decided to go for a totally physical project. I used chalk marker and a chalk board to write out my questions. at first i wanted to plan them out and then i realized that was impossible. instead, i just went for it and began from the middle and intuitively began writing outwards. The chalk board evoked such a sense of movement and ambiguity between the questions that i decided to make a gif from the design. i re wrote the questions but with slight differences six times. each version contained question marks that floated around the canvas. these questions propelled me in the right direction to realizing what going Full Out means, the way i created this projected ended up being the basis of my Full Out methodology.
With this project I documented a personal experience to tell a story using handwriting, illustration and riso printing. two years ago I moved from Los Angeles back to Boston. my dad and i drove my car together on across country road trip. along the way i documented every time we ate together and my dad documented our mileage, gas intake, and time driving. I combined his data with mine, I illustrated each meal and used both of our handwriting to create baseball cards for each stop. baseball is a huge part of our relationship and my dad even planned stops at two MLB parks to catch a game along the way. using techniques that relate back to physicality and movement helped me tell this story even better and connect to a larger audience.
Competing at college nationals was really a dream come true. When I got home from Daytona, I knew I had to make something about my experience. I created a video that told the story of growing up a gymnast, getting injured, and making my come back. To accompany the video i made an accordion fold booklet, one side was a collage of cheer memorabilia that documented my experience at nationals including our score sheet, my bow, and my boarding pass. when you fold the booklet up it becomes a lyric book. I hand illustrated the lyrics to ‘chaos’ by cartel. it is the background music to my video. the song echos the message ‘in chaos, we find ourselves’. fittingly, cartel has been one of my favorite bands since elementary school. using one of their songs to narrate my story starting as a young gymnast, through a life changing injury, and into my identity as a cheerleader who never gives up was very fitting. with this project I was able to combine the subject matter of cheerleading, along with freely illustrating the lyrics inspired by the dynamic movement of cheerleading. I also used the riso printer and created something that can be flipped through and opened up to enhance the physicality of the object.